I02 LEAVES FROM A HUNTING DIARY 



most of us were on terms with the hounds as they bore away towards the 

 Roothings, but turning to the left they carried the hne over the road, 

 leaving Harlow on the left. A weight-carrying grey and a well-bred bay 

 were the first out of the road as they swung towards Moor Hall and crossed 

 another road, when there was a lot of pushing and squeezing, and let-me- 

 coming at the one available gap out of it, which Bailey was the first over. 

 Hounds were now going very quickly over the Moor Hall cricket ground, 

 and you had to make up your mind at once whether to follow Bailey into 

 the plantations with the hounds or Mr. H. Sworder to the right. You had 

 to duck your head if you followed Bailey under two narrow gateways, push 

 your way through some closely growing trees and bushes, over an awkward 

 ditch, and land in a deep-ploughed field, over which a good many were 

 sending their horses at a pace which they would have regretted if we had 

 not had a welcome check or two before the run was over. In the next field 

 hounds bore down towards the Down Hall Brook, where we had the first 

 halt — not long enough to pick a good place over the rabbit-burrowed bank 

 into the field beyond (about the roughest in Essex) before they were on 

 the line again, and turning to the right, carried it into Heathen Wood. 



Here they probably changed foxes, as a couple of hounds went on with 

 one towards Down Hall, while the rest were driving another round the 

 wood, which Essex men know is fringed by a very unfordable, and still 

 more unjumpable, brook. We have known a sportsman attempt to swim 

 it on a well-known grey — an animal which was going well to the front 

 to-day — but have never seen it successfully jumped. Here was an oppor- 

 tunity for rash youth to distinguish or extinguish himself, and while we 

 stood shuddering on its banks, we envied the light-weight on the grey, who 

 was on the right side, as Bailey muttering, " They are over," immediately 

 went for the nearest ford. A good honest mile of road work before we 

 caught hounds as they crossed the Sheering road, near Durrington House, 

 with the immediate prospect of the intricacies of the Cambridge line and 

 River Stort before us. Only two or three more fields before we reached 

 the line, where, luckily, a gate opened on to it ; but it was still more 

 fortunate that no train came rushing round the curve as we all crowded on 

 the line. The gate on the far side would not open, nor lift off its hinges. 

 Bailey hammered away at the lock with a stirrup-iron, and Colonel 

 Gardner, with ready presence of mind, called out to check others from 

 coming on to the line. A gentleman in mufti, "■= on a black horse, who had 

 been cutting out a good deal of the work, got us out of our difficulty by 

 running his horse up the bank, and cramming him through a thick black- 

 thorn. A ]ady,i who was one of the last to cross, had quite a narrow 

 escape, as her pony refused, and kept backing towards the line, and only 

 just made up his mind to face the bank and hedge out as a train rushed past. 



Next, the river had to be crossed; a narrow bridge befriended us, 

 which we crossed in Indian file. A small hand-gate at the further end 

 shuttmg in front of Mr. Dickinson's horse, while his rider was stooping 

 down to open it, he promptly got one of his legs over the side rail, 

 and then another, when it looked very like a bath in the river ; but for- 

 tunately he got back all right. We had another slight check here, as the 

 hounds could not get out of some osiers on account of the surrounding 

 fence, but being extricated, they went away again very merrily over 

 Pishobury Park, and crossed the Harlow and Bishops-Stortford road, close 

 to Mr. Rivers' nursery gardens at Sawbridgeworth. We were now in the 



C. Meek. t Miss M. Glyn. 



